Regarding the problems of carbon offsets, please tell others about my two part radio documentary on Planktos Corp. This is the company who plan to plant trees in Hungary (to offset the Vatican!) - and to dump 100 tons of iron into the Pacific, West of the Galapagos Islands, to stimulate plankton blooms. They are already selling, and giving away credits, though none of this has happened yet.
Although science has urged caution, the company CEO Russ George is steaming ahead with this private for profit experiment. Greenpeace, the World Wildlife Fund, and Friends of Earth have issued press releases and reports against the voyage of Planktos' ship, the Weatherbird II. An emergency session of the London Dumping Convention was already called about this company plan, and the EPA is looking into the legality.
There is a lot at stake here. Can anyone, any little company, just decide to go out and dump things into the sea, to see what happens? Can algae blooms really save us from climate change? Is this company selling reliable carbon offsets, or just promises that can't be substantiated?
Alex Smith
host
Radio Ecoshock
www.ecoshock.org
Planktos: offsets real and imagined
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